ECE 491 - Senior Design
ISE 491 - Senior Design
ME 492 - Senior Mechanical Engineering Design Project
Fall 2011

September 1, 2011

Fall 2011 Design Project Description:

For the Fall 2011 Senior Design experience, we will be designing, building, testing and competing with small, remote-controlled robots that can perform the following task:

The robots will begin at a starting position on a curved line of tape placed on the floor in the Gold Rooms of the OC, move along the tape line to a set of stairs, negotiate the stairs, move along the tape line to a small object (unopened can of Campbell's Tomato Soup, 10-3/4 ounces net weight), pick up the object, move back along the line of tape leading back to the stairs, negotiate the stairs and move along the line back to the starting position and place the object on the floor. At least 2/3 of the course will consist of following the tape line. Control of the robot will by remote operator, placed such that the operator cannot see the robot or the competition course.

The stairs have been constructed of readily-available deck components, details of the construction and dimensions are here. No modifications or alterations of any kind will be permitted to the stairs.

In order to successfully complete the task, the robot must ascend and descend the stairs, closely follow the line of tape, pick up, carry and set down the object. Small obstacles will be placed near the tape line, but no closer than 8-in (20 cm) to the line. Robots touching these obstacles will be assigned a time penalty. The tape line shall not have a radius of curvature smaller than 20-in (51 cm).

During the course of the semester additional constraints may be placed on the behavior of the robots due to safety or fairness considerations. Updates will be made on this web page. Check back often for the latest information.

The competition will consist of 3 trials for each team´s robot, with the shortest of the three times taken as the scoring time. Each trial is limited to 5 minutes; trials that last longer than 5 minutes or in which the robot falls off the stairs or "gets lost" will be assigned a time of 300 seconds. Failing to pick up the object will result in a time of 300 seconds; droppng the object during the run will result in a time penalty equal to touching 10 obstacles.

The score for the competition will be the scoring time in seconds, plus 10 seconds for each obstacle touched by the robot, multiplied by the volume (in cubic centimeters) of the bounding rectangular box the robot fits into when it is in stair-climbing configuration. The lowest score wins. Faster, smaller, more accurate robots will score better than slower, larger, less accurate robots.

Previous Competitions:

In the Winter 2010 semester, student groups built and competed with autonomous robots that could ascend and descend a set of deck stairs, while carrying a glass of water. Videos of the competition can be found here:
http://www2.oakland.edu/secs/W2010Video/

In the Fall 2010 semester, student groups designed, built and competed with autonomous robots that could ascend and descend a set of deck stairs and follow a tape line back to the stairs. Videos of the competition can be found here:
http://www2.oakland.edu/secs/F2010Video

In the Winter 2011 semester, student groups designed, built and competed with autonomous robots that could ascend and descend any set of stairs within Dodge Hall and follow a tape line back to the stairs. Videos of the competition can be found here:
http://www2.oakland.edu/secs/W2011Video

Competition:

On a date TBA, a competition will be held for all of the design groups from 10:00 am - noon.

Discussion for the final written reports:

For your final written reports, in addition to your technical discussions, you are to discuss applications of the technologies that you are exploring and developing in this project. For your final report, discuss various applications of the technologies, with specific emphasis on: